It is time for the Occupy movement to narrow its focus. It is time to occupy the GOP, for the Republican party is the main reason we are still mired in a jobless recovery and the main reason for the growing disparity between the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of us. Almost daily there are examples of Republican attempts to stand in the way of effective governance.
A recent example is Senate Republicans’ filibuster of Obama’s nomination to head the new consumer protection agency. Another example is the Republican House tying legislation to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment compensation with legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, a move the President has said he will veto.
The Republican mantra is that all we require in order to grow is a tax reduction for the wealthy and deregulation. But, as Fareed Zakaria pointed out recently, “the big shift in the United States over the past two decades is not a rise in regulations but a decline in investment in physical and human capital. And investment is the crucial locomotive of long-term growth.”
The Occupy movement would be wise to start sitting in and picketing Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and those other Republican leaders and legislators who put winning above country.
— Marvin S. Helfand, Northbrook
